


Laying Flowers

by ofarecklessmind



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 22:19:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/740781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofarecklessmind/pseuds/ofarecklessmind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a therapy session with Ella, John admits his love for Sherlock and explains his daily tribulations from missing him. That evening, he goes to Sherlock's grave to pay his respects as he does every night and is greeted with a pleasant surprise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laying Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, this is my first work here, and I hope this goes well! I'd love to hear any comments and constructive criticism you may have! Thank you, and I hope you enjoy. -Steph

“Could you tell me what you wished you had told him when he was alive?”  
Ella’s voice was gentle. Cautious. Calculating. She wanted to help John let go. He’d been in a horrible rut ever since Sherlock’s death, and she hated to see him like this. He was the strongest client and man she’d ever had, but he was stubborn, and he was broken. Heartbreakingly so. She had been trying to coax him out of his reclusive depressed state for six months. He’d come to therapy, yes, and sometimes it seemed to help if even in the slightest way, but he refused to open up. To even say his name. He has completely closed off his self and his thoughts from the world and the people in it. She wished there was something that she could say, some magic combination of words that would make him feel less helpless. But he was.. or at least he seemed to be.  
“I- I can’t.” John frowned, carving ever deeper into the wrinkles sloping down from the corners of his mouth. Permanent scars from a man so haunted.  
“I need you to trust me,” Ella was circumspect in her approach, “John, if you try, even just a sentence, it will help you.”  
John pulled his hands over his face and rubbed his fingers across his temples, his mannerisms raw and mechanical. As if he was a wind up doll and was only moving because he had to, because there was no other way to go but forward, but he was trapped in the past.  
“Ella, I don’t know what I would have said,” John replied, relenting slightly from his barrier-like defensive attitude toward her, “I just can’t get through my day without seeing someone walking down the street in a black coat with dark curly hair and feeling some sort of hope. Like he’s somewhere out there still and I just can’t see him. I just can’t come to grips with the fact that he’s done. That his last words to me were an apology for being a fake. He wasn’t a bloody fake. I’d seen him at work with my own eyes. From his most eccentric, ridiculous experiments where he buzzed around the flat for hours on end, to his most secluded state where he’d sit himself by the window with a violin and his thoughts and just play, in the middle of the night. An eerie lullaby it was. It was real too. No one could fake being that good.” The words fell from his lips like laying flowers at a grave.  
Ella began her analysis. She finally had something to work off of, and John listened. He did, but he simply couldn’t go through the motions anymore. He was done. He was done with this session, done with trying to get help for a fatal wound, and done with keeping everything in. He nodded appreciatively at Ella, grabbed his cane, and got up, making his way for the door. Before he opened it though, he paused and turned around.  
“I can’t just let him go,” he paused before releasing the door knob and leaning against the wall, “I loved him, Ella. I fell in love with that annoying prat.” Tears threatened the corners of his eyes, burning as they made for a release. “I miss being awakened at all the ungodly hours of the night by his ruddy violin playing. I miss drinking his god awful, disgusting apology tea everytime he did something bad to me. I miss the childish pranks he’d pull on Mycroft and watching them yell at each other in the sitting room while Mrs. Hudson tried to mediate. I miss the look in his eye when a new, interesting case came around and he was clever enough to see the hole in the evidence the Yard had gathered. And god, I even miss his bored phases where he’d just lay on the couch for weeks and whine, pitying his mind and its lack of stimulation from everyday occurrences.” He slid down the wall and leaned his head, defeated, against the couch. Tears streamed down his emotion-creased face and spilled onto the leather he leaned his face into. He ran his hands through his hair, grayed from exhaustion and age.  
Ella was in shock, not having even a remote idea what to say to comfort him. She knelt down beside him, handed him a tissue, and rested her head on his shoulder comfortingly.  
“You don’t understand,” he began, “Ella, I didn’t just lose my best friend. I lost adventure. I lost my spontaneous life, my love for life, and the man I was in love with.”  
**********************************  
Later that evening, John knelt at Sherlock’s grave, laying down flowers and touching the cold, black stone, wordless. Silent.  
A firm hand lay on his shoulder.  
John turned around, looking up at the lanky, tall figure lingering above him, intense blue eyes focused profusely on him. Black curls fell around his white pale face, covering cuts and bruises. John fell into him, his arms wrapped around his torso and head buried in his stomach.  
“John.” Sherlock whispered, leaning into the embrace and wrapping the man in his arms. He savored the moment, taking in the sights, the sounds, the smells even, taking it to memory and locking it in his mind palace. Then he closed his eyes and simply enjoyed the fact that he and his Doctor were now reunited once again.  
“Sherlock.” John replied, finally looking up and into the Detective’s eyes, trying to convince himself that it was real. It was, “Sherlock, I-“  
“No need,” Sherlock intervened, “I know. And I love you too.”  
and they sat there together wrapped in each other and the world, like two flowers laying on a grave.


End file.
